Chatham County is taking its opposition to the overhaul of the local transit authority’s board of directors to the state Supreme Court, a signal that it intends to prolong its fight to maintain its sway over the board and the authority’s operations.
Just days after Superior Court Judge Timothy R. Walmsley threw out a county lawsuit that sought to stop the state-mandated reorganization of Chatham Area Transit’s board of directors from going into effect, the lawyer representing the county, Allen Lightcap of the Atlanta law firm of Mayer & Harper, filed a notice of appeal.
The county’s decision to file an appeal on July 8 and press forward with efforts to stop the restructuring of the CAT board came even as that makeover had already gotten well underway.
Under the legislation supported by Republican and Democratic state lawmakers from Chatham and signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp in May, House Bill 756, the transit authority’s former nine-member board was dissolved on June 30.
It was replaced the following day by a new, 11-member panel that includes representation from local business and tourism groups, as well as from Port Wentworth and Garden City, municipalities served by the transit system. Its new chairman is District 2 Savannah Alderman Detric Leggett, succeeding Deidrick Cody.
For the moment at least, the composition of the new board represents a political defeat for the Chatham County Commission and its chairman, Chester Ellis.
The former nine-member board included three county commissioners and three people appointed by the commission. That 6-3 majority gave Ellis and the commission sway over both the CAT board and the activities of the transit authority, whose operating budget in FY2023 was about $30 million and service area covers 438 square miles.
The new board reduces the number of commission appointees from six to three, while for the first time giving Chatham County’s legislative delegation in Atlanta three appointees on the panel.
In the lawsuit, Lightcap, Chatham County’s lawyer, argued that the new law was unconstitutional because it improperly interfered with local governance and inflicted excessive harm on six board members by forcing them to vacate their seats before the end of their terms and await possible reappointment.
Those six former board members — Anthony “Wayne” Noha, Bobby Lockett, Marsha Buford, Gertrude Robinson, and John Taylor — are listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
In his ruling on July 3, Walmsley rejected both arguments, siding with Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, who deemed the constitutional challenges to state law serious enough to require him and his office to enter as defendants in the case.
“None of the plaintiffs have a legal right to continue in those seats for any particular length of time where that board may be altered, amended, or dissolved by the General Assembly at any point,’ he wrote in his 13-page ruling.
Georgia’s nine-member high court will now weigh whether to hear the county’s appeal.
The Tide brings regular notes and observations on news and events by The Current staff.
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